In 1919 William Butler Yeats penned a poem called “The Second Coming.” It captured the angst infecting Europe after the First World War. Please indulge me while I read a few lines:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

It could easily refer to our day as well, don’t you think? And at the end of the poem, Yeats asks the haunting question, “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

A few years ago, Robert Bork, referencing Yeats, wrote a disturbing book about cultural decline entitled Slouching Towards Gomorrah. And if our commercials are any indicator, perhaps we’re no longer slouching towards cultural ruin, but sprinting for it. Yes, that’s a pun! The ad I’m talking about is called “Unlimited,” and is a sophisticated attempt by Sprint to entice us to sign up for its latest big-deal data plan. But what’s really amazing is the “passionate intensity” in which it communicates a worldview.

The commercial opens with the line, “The miraculous is everywhere. In our homes. In our minds.” Without the technological backdrop, the Christian might agree. The world is infused with the miraculous presence of God. But as Mark Mitchell over atFrontPorchRepublic.comnotes, the message from Sprintis thatmiracles are now “the … magical work of technicians who deliver devices and applications ... No longer is the term ‘miraculous’ reserved for God and His works. The miracles all around us—even in our homes and our heads—are the product of human ingenuity.”

The ad flashes the word “Unlimited” while the announcer says, “We can share every second in data dressed in pixels.” Really? As Mitchell points out, “In other words, we can reduce the complexity of a human life to digitized bits.” Jacques Ellul, in his seminal work The Technological Society, warned that technology isn’t just a servant that can improve life, but a force that can take over and determine our lives. It fosters what can be called the “technological illusion”—that all problems we face are failures of technique and that the right technology will bring about our salvation.

The commercial continues, “I need to upload all of me.” As Sherry Turkle described in her book Alone Together, this is nothing more than a cry of desperation from a culture of people isolated and alone, who would “rather text than talk.” For too many, being noticed replaces being loved.

Then the announcer states baldly, “I have a need, no, I have the right to be unlimited.” As Mitchell says, it’s as if “the idea of limits of any kind is an offense.”

The spirit of the age reflected in this commercial reminds us of the Serpent’s ancient lie in the Garden, that we can be “as gods,” without limits. And friends, this lie is everywhere—from the academy, in our politics, and on our TVs. But the worldview messages fired at us today rarely use words and target our thoughts. Now they use images and target our imaginations.

As Dr. Jamie Smith—my guest this weekend on BreakPoint This Week—argues, the battle for our imaginations requires proper habits of worship as well as intellectual clarity. We must learn to think well, and we must learn to order our loves, as Augustine said. Jamie talks about this in his book Desiring the Kingdom, and in our interview. Listen at BreakPoint.org or on local radio.

The great Flannery O’Connor once wrote, “Push back against the age as hard as it pushes against you.” Every day on BreakPoint, Eric Metaxas and I will do our best, with God’s help and with great guests like Dr. Smith, to help you push back.

Further Reading and Information

Sprinting Towards Gomorrah: Worldview on TV - Next Steps

Are you prepared to engage in the battle of the minds? It is already here. It is all around us. Yes, at times it seems like pushing a boulder uphill. But Christians must engage.

This reality is a primary motivation for what we do at BreakPoint and Colson Center. We want to help you take steps to equip yourself to push back.

Comments:

Yet more evidence that modernism and "scientism" have not been swallowed up completely by postmodernism. It makes me think of Babel when the Lord said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them." Of course, God is sovereign. Mankind will never succeed in achieving a harmonious, global, humanist utopia. But bless their souls, speaking a universal language of zeroes and ones, the high priests of scientism will continue to push for utopia apart from God, won't they?

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity." -- What a heartbreaking line! Many thanks to Breakpoint for your role in elucidating the many reasons why we believers have every reason to manifest strong conviction in a gracious and respectful manner!

Gary Hutchinson 260reasonsforbelieving.com

Posted By: Gary Hutchinson on March 23, 2013 4:35 PM

Sprint commercial

Wow, you must have been listening at our dinner table last night! We had almost this same conversation (without the literary references)! The Sprint commercial offends on so many levels. Worst of all is the line, "I need--no, I HAVE A RIGHT...". This is the entitlement mindset distilled. This is the original sin.